Linnaeus Tripe joined the British East India Company’s army in 1838. While on furlough in England during the early 1850s, he began to experiment with photography. When he returned to India, the British government asked him to photograph selected architectural subjects in Burma and in the region around Madras in southeastern India as part of a mission to record and conserve these monuments. Between December 1857 and April 1858 he produced more than four hundred images in India, many of which were published in a series of volumes from which RISD’s Tanjore photograph derives. Tripe had an interest in the medium’s expressive as well as descriptive possibilities and composed this image carefully, giving thought to sightlines and a lively pattern of rich darks and lights.

The official photographer to the Madras government, Linnaeus Tripe documented much of south India. This photograph shows Nandi, sacred animal of the Hindu god Shiva, at the entrance to the Brihadeeswarar Temple in Thanjavur. Because of the bull’s affiliation with fertility, it has been visited and anointed by pilgrims for hundreds of years, and Tripe’s record emphasizes the smooth surface of the stone.

Tripe’s interest in photography’s descriptive and expressive possibilities is evident in this composition, which carefully considers the sightline while capturing the pattern of rich darks and lights made by the structure, the trees, and the shadows.

The photographic boom at the end of the 19th century reached the masses chiefly by way of portraiture. Case photography—unique photographs whose fragile surfaces were enclosed in velvet, metal, and glass within leather, rubber, or plastic cases—was the first type of portraiture most families owned.

Technological competition, including the drive to make photography more affordable to both makers and buyers, led to the invention of the succession of processes represented here.

Please note that dates refer to major use of the processes in the 19th century. Many of these processes were used by photographers well into the 20th century and are still employed today.

Linnaeus Tripe joined the British East India Company’s army in 1838. While on furlough in England during the early 1850s, he began to experiment with photography. When he returned to India, the British government asked him to photograph selected architectural subjects in Burma and in the region around Madras in southeastern India as part of a mission to record and conserve these monuments. Between December 1857 and April 1858 he produced more than four hundred images in India, many of which were published in a series of volumes from which RISD’s Tanjore photograph derives. Tripe had an interest in the medium’s expressive as well as descriptive possibilities and composed this image carefully, giving thought to sightlines and a lively pattern of rich darks and lights.

Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design. “Selected Works”. Providence: Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, 2008.